State Department FOIA work crippled by virus precautions

By Josh Gerstein, Politico, Mar. 27, 2020

The State Department’s processing of records for public release under the federal government’s best-known transparency law—the Freedom of Information Act—has ground to a virtual halt due to work changes aimed at quelling the coronavirus pandemic, according to an agency official.

State Department official Eric Stein said in a formal court declaration this week that the unusual system the agency relies upon for line-by-line review of requested documents has been hit hard by the shift to telework as a means of reducing the number of people in federal offices

Read more here.